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EVA 2009ICIDS 2009 Interactive StorytellingSamsung Application Store Developer Challenge 2009Global Game Jam
 | S W E E T S N I P P E T Response Curves in XML for Game Parametrization by Diego B.S., posted 11/30/09 A basic programming rule is to avoid using parameters and magic numbers directly in source code. This article proposes an addition to this well-known design pattern, explaining a simple way to parametrize in xml the response curves that otherwise may be hard-coded |  | R E V I E W Anime Studio Pro 6 by Kelly L. Murdock, posted 11/27/09 We look over the latest version of Smith Micro's Anime-centric drawing and animation tool. |
 | E V E N T C O V E R A G E Screen Yorkshire: Nokia Ovi Store Developers Event by Oli Wilkinson, posted 11/25/09 Coverage of the Nokia-hosted event that featured speakers presenting on Nokia’s Ovi Store and the Forum Nokia development program for developers |  | E V E N T C O V E R A G E MIGS 2009 by Drew Sikora, posted 11/24/09 Overview of this year's Montreal International Games Summit, links to coverage of sessions, and coverage of select sessions by the author |
Unity Summer of Code Post Mortem: Cutscene EditorIn the final part of our Unity Summer of Code interviews we speak to Canadian programmer and filmmaker Matthew Miner about his experiences developing his Cutscene Editor project for Unity.
| Friday, December 4, 2009 | |
| Audacity 1.3.10 (Beta) released | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 4:19:34 AM | |
 The Audacity Team is pleased to announce the release of Audacity 1.3.10 (Beta) for Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix.This release removes a significant number of crash or freeze problems and other major bugs. It brings us very close to our goal of a new 2.0 Release. 1.3.10 is strongly recommended for users on Windows Vista and 7, rather than 1.2.6 Stable, which is now very old. We ask everyone to help us test 1.3.10 and let us know of any problems you find. Windows 7 support in 1.3.10 is still provisional, so we particularly welcome reports of issues found on that operating system. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Trent Polack at 12:09:27 AM | |
 Hi, Internet. How are you doing on this Friday? Apparently Austin is due for some snow today which may or may not cause widespread panic and terror in the city.So, okay. I know this is the game industry and we tend to be kind of bizarre, but seriously folks, this is getting out of control. The Saboteur has downloadable content to enable nudity in the game. According to source Shacknews: "'Adult content including nudity, a V.I.P. room and new hiding spots' is only available to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 players if they download the Midnight Show add-on, according to Kotaku, which posted a screenshot of the in-game prompt." People who buy the game new will get a voucher for The Midnight Show DLC. People who get The Saboteur, presumably, second-hand can get the Midnight Show DLC separately for $3 or 240MS points. This is an actual thing, people. In completely unrelated news, NPD data shows that 82% of American children (ages 2-17) are 'gamers'; that's approximately 55.7 million people. A gamer in this case is someone who "[...] had to report that they currently, personally play video games on a PC/Mac, video game system or device used for gaming." That's a lot of wee gamers. I bet they all want the Midnight Show DLC for The Saboteur too. Games for Windows Live has finally joined in the digital distribution fun. Microsoft announced the addition of "Games on Demand" to the Games for Windows Live service yesterday with Resident Evil 5, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Battlestations: Pacific, Osmos, and World of Goo. Games for Windows Live Engagement Services general manager Mike Ybarra said: "We didn't just want to create a cut-and-paste version of existing digital distribution services, [...] Our goal has always been to create a seamless online gaming experience for the Windows community, and Games on Demand is a great step toward that end." Drew would want me to relay the news of Gran Turismo 5's "Time Trial Challenge" demo which is coming on December 17. The demo features two different versions of the Nissan 370Z, which is why Drew would want you to know about this. That about wraps it up for me. Video games. You should probably play Continuity, as an astute GameDev.net Daily reader (Omega147) correctly pointed out. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Thursday, December 3, 2009 | |
| GDC Canada 2010 Opens Call for Submissions | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 12:38:10 PM | |
 The call for submissions to present content for lectures, roundtables and panel sessions for the 2010 Game Developers Conference® Canada (GDC Canada) is now open through midnight, Tuesday, January 5, 2010. GDC Canada serves as a nexus point for established and promising young studios to learn best practices for developing new global titles and understanding emerging digital distribution models. The second annual GDC Canada is presented by Reboot Communications and Think Services, the organizers of the industry-leading Game Developers Conference. GDC Canada 2010 will return to the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC from May 6-7, 2010.Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 12:32:22 PM | |
  I've been away a while, so some of today's news is actually last week's news, but if it's the first you've heard of it then it's still relevant right? And no, there won't be a Daily on Christmas day. I'll have to think of some other gift to give you all I suppose. There *might* be a Daily on New Years Day if I'm in any shape to type on a computer keyboard.Studio news: Silicon Knights, Streamline, Undead Labs, Sledghammer Games. Silicon Knights bossman Denis Dyack has looked back on the industry's job losses over the past year and a half and calls the event "staggering", but he can't help note that with all the studio closures, his is now one of the oldest that are still largely intact. Not only does he intend to keep it that way, but he has hope for the rest of the province of Ontario as well, saying Before, Ontario was a little isolated, there wasn't a lot of videogame companies here. But that's going to change. With all the positive steps that the government's done - were were huge proponents off - Ubisoft coming in for example, that's going to change everything for the better. I'm really looking forward to that, we're super-excited." US-based Streamline Studios has been >forced to close their Amsterdam studio due to a "perfect storm" of events - loss of contracts, loss of clients and the increase of the Euro over the American Dollar. It's just another wake-up call to the rest of us - stay on your toes, business people! Over in Seattle, we welcome the birth of brand new studio Undead Labs, headed up by former Blizzard and NCSoft employee Jeff Strain. The studio is currently hard at work on their flagship title, an MMOZ (massively multiplayer online zombie) game. Holy awesome. Finally, a new California Bay Area-based studio has also been announced - Sledgehammer Games is under the command of former Dead Space lead developers Glen Schofield and Michael Condry and is working on an unannounced new title possibly "based on one of Activision’s existing franchises". Litigation News: Modern Warfare 2, Crazy Lawsuit Guy. In serious news, Modern Warfare 2 is in for a fight down under, as South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson will be fighting to remove the game's MA15+ rating. Since Australia doesn't have anything higher than MA15+ (due largely to Atkinson's own insistence) if he succeeds that would effectively ban MW2 from being sold in Australia, until developer Infinity Ward can scramble to edit down the game's violence - if that's even an option for them. Let's all join in on the cheer: "Mike! Mike! He's our man - if he can't do it... GREAT!!" Annnd over in not-so-serious news, we have one Erik Estavillo, who has so far tried to sue Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, followed by Activision Blizzard. His reasons range from Blizzard making their WoW characters walk too slow to get more monthly fees out of users, to the 360's RROD causing him too much sadness and depression. Review Scores: Not That Important. Industry analysts Doug Creutz and Jesse Divnich have both spoken out against review scores as the driving factor behind a game's success. Over at Gamasutra, Creutz notes that "We believe that while Metacritic scores may be correlated to game quality and word of mouth, and thus somewhat predictive of title performance, they are unlikely in and of themselves to drive or undermine the success of a game." Meanwhile at the Montreal International Games Summit late last month, Divnich gave a lecture on how key marketing is to a title's success, saying that without proper marketing "You can make the greatest game and it won't even matter. I know that's discouraging to developers at first but it's very true." Daily Remainders - more cool stories that didn't make the cut along with game dev articles/features. If you're pissed that Apple rejected your app idea, then join in with the other scorned developers over at Apple Rejected Me, which is sorta like FMyLife, but for app developers. I love a lot of features Wired does, and this one is most intriguing - they've taken a few photos of what look like average countryside, shoreline or cityscape, only underneath it all runs internet backbone data cables. Check out some of the real-world landmarks that are essential to our flow of digital information. Oh and no doubt the digital branch of Homeland Security is having fits over this.  Read this post in ChineseRead More.. | 6 Comments | |
| Unity iPhone 1.5.1 and Unity 2.6.1 are both available now! | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 10:27:53 AM | |
 Unity iPhone 1.5.1The Unity iPhone 1.5.1 update was recently released and is a critical update for everyone who is using Unity to develop content for the iPhone or iPod Touch. In order to ensure compliance with Apple's application submission requirements, as of Unity iPhone 1.5.1 we no longer make use of native API calls. Of course there are other updates as well, including both documentation and functional improvements, along with a number of bug fixes. Unity 2.6.1 In addition to the Unity iPhone update mentioned above we've been busy at work on Unity as well and want to let everyone know about the recent Unity 2.6.1 update. This update includes a number of important bug fixes and updates, including full Unity Web Player support for Safari running as a 64-bit application on Mac OSX 10.6. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Wednesday, December 2, 2009 | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Oli Wilkinson at 3:37:28 PM | |
| Na then. A late, and short, GDNet daily on what is personally a very important day for little ol' me. On wi' show then. Torque about price drops: TorquePowered have finally announced a response to the free version of Unity and the Unreal Development kit... it is... *drumroll*, a cut-price version of Torque Pro! A sourcecode-free version of the Torque Engine is yours for only $100 during December, afterwards it goes up to $250 a seat. It;s a good deal but in light of what you can get elsewhere I can't help feel it should have been more, really. What's your opinions dalyiverse? Nobody tell Tim: Mirror's Edge is leaping onto the iPhone in January 2010. I'd love to see the dookiestorm that old Langdell and co kicks up about this now, especially after their recent outburts/mad ramblings. What will Apple do? Only time will tell. Popcorn firmly in hand. Defeating the point?: So Logitec are talking about releasing a UMD addon for the PSP Go. Are you serious? Isn't the whole point of the the Go that you get to go UMD free? I appreciate that people may have old UMD dics sat around so in a way can't really fault Logitec from making a quick buck from the market. I do find the duality of the PSP and PSP Go quite odd though. Maybe the Go is an experiment to see if it sells enough to pull the old versions. As we saw last week, Go sales figures aren't great so far. Medal of Honor: So Modern Warfare has been huge. No wait, I mean H-U-G-E. Who can blame EA from wading in with a similar "modern day" epic with their Medal of Honor franchise? Well, it turns out the next installment will be set in Afghanistan. I can't wait to feel the rush of having inadequate equipment, a lack of soldiers - random deaths from IED's and so on. Hey, I wonder if we'd also get the NPCs spitting in our faces and reels of polticians attempting to justify the engagement in any way they can. That's war, soldier. Games ain't so bad: So we all know that the mainstream media hates games. They corrupt us, make us kill civilains in airports - surely this warrants angry parents pulling the games from shelves, setting fire to them and writing to the Daily Mail about what a horrific impact they have on poor little Jonny. TIGA have revealed that the BBFC (the guys who rate films in the UK) have rejected three times as many films as games in the past 5 years. We can either glean that a) more sicko film producers are out there than game studios or b) games really aren't that bad. TIGA argue that games don't warrant this unfair sterotype that films seem to avoid - I'm inclined to agree. Read More.. | 3 Comments | |
| The results for the second annual Gamedev.net Composition Contest are in! | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 2:17:06 AM | |
 GameDev.net was proud to sponsor the second annual composition contest, where entrants were charged with composing a short sequence to a game demo for a share of $175 in Amazon gift money. The crown this time around goes to Michal Cieleki (mirrored). Hit the jump for runners-up and full contest details.Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Tuesday, December 1, 2009 | |
| Emergent Partners With Sundog for Sky Effects | |
| Posted by: Sundog Software, LLC at 11:41:44 PM | |
| Sundog Software LLC, a leading developer of computer graphics middleware for rendering the sky and 3D clouds, has partnered with Emergent Game Technologies, a worldwide leader in game development services and tools. An integration of Sundog's SilverLining SDK with Emergent's Gamebryo® LightSpeed™ is available today, and brings physically realistic skies, clouds, lighting, and precipitation effects to licensed users of LightSpeed. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Call For PAX East Panel Submissions Open | |
| Posted by: The Bohle Company at 6:33:22 PM | |
| BOSTON – Nov. 30, 2009 – The call for speaker/panel submissions for PAX East 2010 has opened and will run till Jan. 11, 2010. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.Net | |
| Posted by: Promit Roy at 3:11:46 PM | |
| If you're in college/university, you have a very special time of the year ahead of you. Most people refer to this time as "the holiday season". However, you know and I know that this is not the holiday season, but in fact the season of hellish, packed together deadlines, exams, final projects, and inexplicable parties being thrown by people who by all rights should be as panicked as you. Let's get on with a Let the Holiday Season Begin! GameDev.Net Daily. Oh, and note that some of these posts will now be tracking your click-throughs, mainly for our curiosity. Naturally your click data will not be used for any other purpose or sold to any party, unless we really want to in which case the terms of your user agreement -- agreed to by reading this paragraph -- will be changed retroactively without prior notice. Thanks! Valve is thrilled because Left 4 Dead 2 sold 2 million copies in two weeks. Granted they discounted the game heavily pretty much everywhere, and it's certainly no Modern Warfare 2, and they probably lost as many as five sales due to that boycott of gullible people being angry about something or the other. Still though, an impressive performance. Should make for some good multiplayer fun. With all these millions upon millions of game sales happening, it's just not very environmentally friendly these days. Luckily some particularly enterprising soul has come up with this Eco-Box packaging for Xbox 360 games. By reducing the amount of plastic by just a bit on each disc, they hope to make the world a better place. The tech would be fairly complex to describe in detail, but seems to be focused around the concept of a "hole", which you can probably look up on Wikipedia. I guess the Xbox 360 is the platform of choice for the eco-friendly video-game trained murderous teenager. And yes, I continue to enjoy the costume improvements in Mass Effect 2. On the subject of development, the people behind Heavy Rain are out to prove that video games can be meaningful. Personally I'm thinking that Kojima may have beat them to the punch, but perhaps unlike Kojima they will produce a game that is both meaningful and coherent. Then again they've called it an "interactive movie" and I've always been a little wary of developers who get too wrapped up in being artistic. Oh, and it's a PS3 exclusive so apparently Sony has a monopoly on meaningful interactive movies. If you've been waiting for DirectX 11 to prove itself, Dirt 2 is just about ready to try and make the sale. The PC demo of the game is out, thoughtfully packing the exact same two tracks as the console demos. (Don't worry, they're good tracks. It's a good game.) The game will be out in a few days, and it also includes a benchmark so you can expect to see plenty of attention for the game on the hardware reviewers' sites for years to come. I missed this by over a month, but better late than never. I know Street Fighter is all the rage again these days, but I grew up on Tekken and I have a soft spot for it. Here is the GameTrailers video review of the game. A stand-out game? Not really, and I'd actually rather see a new Dead or Alive title. Still, I'm not too shy about occasional nostalgia. Read More.. | 6 Comments | |
| EMotion FX character animation SDK is a perfect match for Wii developers | |
| Posted by: MysticGD at 1:28:02 PM | |
| Rotterdam, Netherlands - December 2nd, 2009 - MysticGD, a leader in real-time character animation middleware, today mentioned that the EMotion FX character animation SDK is a perfect animation solution for developers creating games for the Nintendo Wii, both feature and pricing wise. "EMotion FX offers a lot of very useful features that can really boost performance and reduce memory footprint, especially on platforms such as the Wii. We have spent the last year working closely together with companies such as Ubisoft and Headstrong to make sure we offer the quality level we always aim for. With several successful EMotion FX powered games now in stores for the Wii, it is safe to say that EMotion FX is a great match for this platform." said John van der Burg, Development Director. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Nordic Game 2010 Dates Set | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 8:53:51 AM | |
 The organisers of the Nordic Game conference are happy to announce the date for the 2010 edition of the leading european industry conference. So draw a red circle in your calendars now: Next year's Nordic Game will be held on 27-29 April, 2010.The seventh edition of the continuously growing conference will take place in Malmö, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark, in a world premiering two-city multi event. More information coming soon! Read about it at www.nordicgame.com. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Garry's Mod - Gamemode Contest - $10,000 worth of prizes! | |
| Posted by: Facepunch Studios at 7:39:03 AM | |
 Facepunch Studios are having a Gamemode coding contest. Here's the facts:• Code a Gamemode for Garry's Mod (http://www.garrysmod.com/) • In Lua • For a share of $10,000 For more details please see the official contest page here: http://frettacontest.facepunchstudios.com/ Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Monday, November 30, 2009 | |
| Remo 3D™ v2.0: Scripts, new tools and new modern look! | |
| Posted by: Remograph at 2:11:46 PM | |
| Remograph is pleased to announce that Remo 3D™ v2.0 has now been released! This new major version of Remo 3D™ contains a lot of updates including support for scripts and macros, a new modern graphical user interface and new convenient tools for modeling of soft and round shapes. The full list of new features and improvements in Remo 3D™ v2.0 can be found in the release notes on our website: http://www.remograph.com Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Mike Stedman at 10:11:51 AM | |
| Today's GDNet Daily will be fairly abbreviated, as outside of killer Black Friday deals, most Americans were enjoying turkey and doing something or other with football, probably. Us Canadians had our Thanksgiving back in October, where it's warmer and more enjoyable. I'm not saying we're the superior country in North America or anything, but, well, in the face of evidence like that... Today's top news is the Facebook announcement of a new Duke Nukem game. You may also be interested in some new Mass Effect 2 trailers. Before we go any further, we need to have a frank discussion. Growing up in the arcades, I was always more of a fan of the technically-complex SNK fighting games instead of the relatively low-powered Capcom fighting games (none of us particularly enjoyed the stiff and unpleasant Mortal Kombat games). To that effect, I am extremely fearful about the quality of the King of Fighters movie, having seen pretty much every Street Fighter movie that has ever come out. In indie games, you might be interested in Captain Successor; I found the controls kind of wonky, but then again I was building a ship that was wider than it was long. I also like the idea of Level Up and Osmos but haven't played either one yet, and holy crap is Driftmoon ever gorgeous. Speaking of TIGSource, if you're an artist or a musician and you're frustrated by all the effort it takes to get your art shooting at each other and receiving experience points, you should check out their Assemblee Competition. You make beautiful works of art in part one, and then a gruff, unshaven programmer steps in and makes studly games out of your stuff. Sony is still working on PlayStation Home, and one of their latest additions is this really creepy elf. Some golden-tongued soldier has managed to convince the Royal Navy to give him (and 229 others) a PSP for "studying." Before you go today, check out this guy's emotional piano playing. Great stuff. Read More.. | 5 Comments | |
| HPMC, a smalll GPLl OpenGL/C/C++-library for GPU iso-surface extraction | |
| Posted by: sintef.no/heterocomp at 5:10:31 AM | |
 The Heterogeneous Computing Group at Sintef is proud to present HPMC, a small multi-platform OpenGL/C/C++-library that extractes iso-surfaces of volumetric data directly on the GPU. It is distributed under GPL 2.0, with commercial license available.For source, doucmentation, sample apps and videos, http://www.sintef.no/hpmc Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Friday, November 27, 2009 | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Trent Polack at 12:04:37 AM | |
| Happy Black Friday (in the US) and Just Another Friday (elsewhere). Since yesterday was Thanksgiving us here in the US, it wasn't much of a news day. I'm not really sure how much valuable information I can give you all today. I could tell you about my somewhat unwilling foray into an attempt at online dating, but, yeah, no. So video games! The big news for anyone right now is probably about sales (Black Friday thing) and in that spirit I give unto you an enormous array of discount video games. Steam's list is particularly brutal. Gamasutra has a great piece by the consummate thinker Chris Remo entitled "Looking for Meaning in Games." In the piece, Remo analyzes what he felt to be a recurring theme of the Montreal International Game Summit (MIGS) which was to "reconsider the expressive or creative possibilities of games." It's been kind of a theme in the game industry as a whole this year as we've seen a major rise in the activity of the independent game development space. I won't do the piece a disservice by summarizing it; you should just read it. Imminently. On the topic of Gamasutra, the site ran a postmortem piece with developer 8Monkey's about the development of Darkest of Days. Postmortems about super successful games are always interesting, but there's something amazing about an honest postmortem about a somewhat less-than-stellar game. Darkest of Days was a game that had an amazing and fantastic concept and, while I didn't play it, appeared to be executed very well all things considered. Square-Enix Europe announced on Wednesday that they are "restructuring" the UK-based game development company Beautiful Game Studios. Beautiful is the developer of the Championship Manager games. According to Square-Enix: "We have taken a decision to re-focus our vision for the franchise and redefine our business model to build a successful commercial future for the Championship Manager brand. Our current business model does not allow us to compete in a fast-changing industry with any degree of flexibility or commercial confidence. [...] To achieve this, we will be re-structuring Beautiful Game Studios, which will regrettably bring with it unavoidable job losses. We aim to have this completed before the end of this calendar year." According to Gamasutra, roughly 80% of jobs are being cut or relocated. That's all I've got for you today, folks. Enjoy your (hopefully) long weekend. Play some video games, eat an over-abundance of food, and check your e-mail inbox constantly. Erm. That last one is more for me. Read More.. | 3 Comments | |
| Wednesday, November 25, 2009 | |
| Audiokinetic Releases Wwise 2009.3 and Announces New Pricing | |
| Posted by: Karine Legeron - Audiokinetic at 3:47:48 PM | |
| Audiokinetic Inc., the leading audio solution provider for the video game industry, released today the latest version of Wwise, its award-winning audio pipeline solution. Wwise 2009.3 introduces new features and enhancements, including access to two McDSP plug-ins. Audiokinetic also unveiled a new pricing structure that will allow customers to save up to 20% on purchase of the company’s product families. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Oli Wilkinson at 12:00:06 PM | |
| Midweek. Always a hard time, not quite the weekend and you're weary enough from 3 days of being at work. With that in mind here's an energizing GDNet daily for you to break that midweek blues. Wii Bubble deflating?: I can't say I ever truly groked the appeal of the Wii, but it's being extremely popular with a huge demographic of game players for a while now. But according to Cowen and Company, that could be changing. The survey found that of Wii-only owners fewer people are buying new games for their Wii than 360- or PS3-only owners. Big is Beautiful: EA Montreal is cutting back its support for the Wii to focus on "action titles and HD-quality products" on the XBox 360 and PS3. The decision has been influenced by the success of Army of Two and EA's drive to adapt to the market of today. It is unclear how much EA Montreal has been affected by the recent layoffs announced by EA. East is Beautiful: Beautiful Game Studios, developers of recent Championship Manager games will see 80% of posts being cut or relocated to China in a major restructure of the company. The current business model is being blamed for being non-competitive and inflexible in the current climate. The Championship Manager brand will still be headquartered out of London. XBox - Read the FAQ!: It's emerged that in 2008 Microsoft filed a patent around the technology of a "User-Powered Always Available Contextual Help Guide for a games console". Whilst seemingly different to Nintendo's Super Guide, this will feature content written by gamers - for gamers. Games getting cheaper?: Analysts EEDAR are predicting that the median price for XBox 360 and PS3 console titles will drop by $10 to $49.99 by the end of 2010. Pricing for the Wii has been difficult for the company to predict due to it working "perpendicular to the rest of the industry". 2m XBox Live Facebook Users: It's reported that nearly 2 million people used Facebook on their 360 console in the first week of its availability. A further 1 million signed on to Last.fm and 1.7 million users checked out Zune's brebranded 1080p video store. Odds and Sods
Read More.. | 14 Comments | |
| Tuesday, November 24, 2009 | |
| The LOGIN 2010 Call for Speakers is Open | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 4:18:44 PM | |
| This is the news many of you have waited for, the call for speakers for LOGIN 2010. To speak at the LOGIN Conference is a mark of distinction and accomplishment in the game industry — but it's not necessarily easy. Speakers and their abstracts are vetted through peer review, and are carefully matched to our attendees' needs. The Call for Speakers is open to all online game industry experts worldwide, whether for console, PC or mobile platforms. Candidates are asked to review the topics of interest and session submission tips on the LOGIN 2010 website and then submit a completed session proposal form with 1,000 word abstract and biography before the deadline of January 25, 2010. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.Net | |
| Posted by: Promit Roy at 2:13:20 PM | |
| It's not Turkey Day yet, but it is Turkey week in the US. That means irritating commutes to meet family, impending weight gain, and people taking vacation days at what will inevitably be the worst possible time. I considered taking a vacation day, but I guess I'm just too dedicated to doing nothing in particular to take a break from it. Unfortunately Turkey Week is also a pretty thin news week. However, GamaSutra did cover a talk by Ken Rolston that is fairly interesting. I met the man once, and I can tell you for a fact he is crazy. I mean that in the best, most positive possible way, and he's a wonderful game designer...but still crazy. Though to be honest, I'm starting to suspect that's a prerequisite for being a designer to begin with. Just look at Trent! He actually thought having a daily news column here was a great idea. In the realm of pointless obsession about video game violence, two organizations conducted a study of whether games allow players to violate the Geneva Convention. Apparently the horrible conduct that is allowed in these war video games might mislead people to believe that all soldiers do in real life is go around killing people indiscriminately, disregarding wartime laws. Unimaginable. I bet a lot of you are big into the whole nostalgia thing, so I can only assume you'll be enthralled or appalled to learn that several Atari games are now available to play online in Flash form. And I have to tell you, Lunar Lander is still really hard. There's nothing I love more than court cases (except maybe NPD numbers), and today brings us a new one. This time it's against Microsoft, courtesy of accessory make Datel. It's essentially your standard monopoly allegations, as a result of Microsoft blocking out third party memory cards. Personally I'm on Datel's site, and I thought the MS move was pretty asinine. Then again, consoles aren't meant to be friendly to their customers when it comes to money. Just look at the wireless adapter pricing for the 360. Apparently Square Enix is doing the cinematics for Deus Ex 3. As a fairly enthusiastic Final Fantasy fan, I can definitely attest to the amazing skills the Squeenix guys have when it comes to producing prerendered cinematics. They have to do a good job since the vast majority of their box art and trailers are scripted/prerender scenes, after all. Lastly, a couple Pandemic guys who got fired decided to go out Office Space style. The video's NSFW audio, but completely worth it. No, it's not quite the original, but there's nothing quite like smashing a printer to hip hop music. Oh and before I go -- Miley Cyrus 1, crazy "fan" 0! Read More.. | 4 Comments | |
| Monday, November 23, 2009 | |
| xaitment upgrades its AI game tools to version 2.6 | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 3:30:09 PM | |
| xaitment is a German-based developer of artificial intelligence tools for games and simulations. The Company’s tools provide far more than just pathfinding - they offer game developers the ability to easily create advanced artificial intelligence that make non-player characters more intelligent and unpredictable, and games more fun to play. Gamedev.net just learned that the company upgraded its AI game tools to version 2.6. We sat down with xaitment to get a little more information on the new versions. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Luxology Releases High-Quality Image Viewer for the Apple iPhone | |
| Posted by: Liaison PR at 11:29:30 AM | |
| Luxology® LLC, an independent technology company developing next-generation 3D content creation software, announced today that it has released its first app for the millions of people using the Apple iPhone and iTouch. Apple customers who appreciate stunning, photo-real images can now download the LuxGallery app, which allows them to quickly and easily view and search for computer-generated images found in the company's extensive Customer Gallery. Read More.. | 1 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Mike Stedman at 9:54:47 AM | |
| Many people have come up to me in the street and asked me: "Mike, what is best in life?" I generally strike them down with my diamond-encrusted Scepter of the Moderator (+2/+3 against trolls) and shriek something about them having the audacity to approach me without a prior appointment. But in reality, what is best in life is making computer-controlled characters fight each other to the death, so you don't have to waste any ammo. It was true in Doom, and it's true today. This week brings us little or no specific joy, though some people on staff will be quite overjoyed that Twilight: Scene It is out for the Wii and Hello Kitty Party is available for the DS. You might also be interested in Serious Sam HD, the graphically swank remake of the original game about a man who shoots monsters and frequently locked up my original Xbox. Stardock has released their annual customer report, revealing that they are getting their butts kicked by Steam, but not as badly as, well, everyone else, ever. It would be nice to have a compelling alternative to Steam (particularly for the Mac - hint, hint) but so far Impulse isn't really there for me. Need for Speed: Shift is making a pseudo-compelling argument for having my attention back from Modern Warfare 2 and Forza 3 with new free downloadable content which provides for some cheap-to-license American classics as well as a Japanese torque monster. The PlayStation store has a cool application now called adhocParty, which lets you tunnel those bastard PSP games that only offered local multiplayer... through the internet. What this means is this: if you have any stock in any Japanese corporation, chances are you are going to want to sell it right now before they figure out that they can basically play Monster Hunter forever. It's probably too late already. Also, if you have a Wii, SUPER MARIO KART YES. Reportedly, PilotWings is also coming. Are you one of the people looking forward to BioShock 2? Did you appreciate how the original game made compromises on almost every aspect of every previous Shocklike game, even Invisible War? Well, it's time for you to enjoy some multiplayer footage. It actually feels a little bit like multiplayer Deus Ex to me, which I loved, and which approximately eight people ever played. The Saboteur has gone gold, no small feat considering most of its development staff were fired unceremoniously last week. EA's marketing team is at it again: if you were looking forward to that game trailer about going to a Catholic church and praying your arse off, well, you're not gonna get it. Turns out it was a publicity stunt for Dante's Inferno, just like when EA phoned me and told me to rob a bank last night and take hostages. That game better be pretty good, because I'm told I only get like 30-35 minutes of video games a day on death row. Before you go today, check out this year's lineup of Valve Christmas cards, featuring the red Spy doing what must be a form of CPR to the blue Scout's mom. Read More.. | 3 Comments | |
| NeoAxis Game Engine in web browsers and first NeoAxis based game on Steam | |
| Posted by: Ivan Efimov at 5:59:53 AM | |
| The next release of NeoAxis Engine, version 0.83 is a step to web integration. This version comes with web browser support. NeoAxis based application can be deployed to web browsers now. NeoAxis Engine supports all major browsers including FireFox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari. NeoAxis Engine is a complete integrated development environment for creating interactive 3D graphics including 3D virtual worlds, AAA games, and realistic simulations. The system comprised of both a real-time 3D engine and a suite of full featured tools. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Friday, November 20, 2009 | |
| Weekend Reading: Tales from Journal Land | |
| Posted by: Drew Sikora at 7:53:21 PM | |
| Entries from 11/13 - 11/19 Journal Land Pick of the Week Warp Pipe to Professional Game Development - zyrolasting has a mini-article about how to properly manage your code in projects, based on answers he has been giving on the forums, repeating himself often. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Trent Polack at 12:06:28 AM | |
| It's a Daily! Drew wanted me to apologize to you for his lack of a Daily yesterday. I am apologizing for me for a quick Daily today because I just got home (it's late) and I have God of War Collection and Assassin's Creed 2 in my bag and those games need playing. The most important news of the week is that No More Heroes is coming to Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. This is the best news of the week and if you disagree you are wrong. Speaking of things which are awesome: 3D Dot Game Heroes is also getting a US release in May 11, 2011. This is also brilliant news. 3D Dot Game Heroes is being brought to us by From Software (developer of Demon's Souls!) and Atlus (US publisher of Demon's Souls!) is aimed at making an awesome game that appeals to the inner video gaming child in all of us by emulating Zelda except awesomer. And speaking of more things which are absolutely rad, the Playstation 3 beta of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 started today. Bad Company was pretty much one of the best multiplayer games of all time (as fellow Daily writer, Mike, and I can attest to) and it looks like DICE is just improving on it in every way possible for the sequel. In case you were unaware or missed the Daily earlier this week, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold a whole lot of copies. In the game's first five days of sales Activision claims that a "'new worldwide estimated five-day sell-through record' of $550 million" was reached. That's just an absurd number. Source Shacknews relays the information that Activision included in the press release at the aforementioned link. In tangentially related news, game blogger Matthew Kaplan wrote up a no doubt spoiler-laden summary of Modern Warfare 2's "No Russian" mission with contributions from around the Internet. As I indicated last week I think this is an interesting topic of discussion. Game developer, publisher, and desktop enhancement developer Stardock released its yearly consumer report this week which has all sorts of stats on the company's consumer demographic information and digital distribution and other such numbers. This is the kind of plan a lot of publicly-held companies make for their share-holders every year but Stardock is a privately-held company and, as such, releases this information for the sake of its customers. Check it out. The statistic which saddened me is that, apparently, 96% of Stardock's customer base is male. That's just... Ugh. Marvelous Entertainment reports better luck with games on the PSP than the Wii. The company cites poor sales for its huge critical hit Little King's Story on the Wii, which is sad, because while I haven't played the game I've heard nothing but praise (and keep meaning to pick it up). Presumably Muramasa: The Demon Blade saw similarly poor sales given the point of the article, but only the Japanese sales data was given. The company has, however, had good luck with its PSP releases due to sales and lower development costs. This is particularly fantastic because Marvelous made Half-Minute Hero which is, actually, one of my favorite games of the year. Not to keep linking my site in Dailies, but I want you to share in the glory of this super clever game. It's brilliant. Now. Friday. Let's have some fun this weekend, shall we? I know I said this was a quick Daily (and it was, for the most part), but it ended up being long. This is because I pretty much just talked about video games. I like video games. OH I HAVE ASSASSIN'S CREED TO PLAY, HAVE A NICE WEE-- Read More.. | 7 Comments | |
| Thursday, November 19, 2009 | |
| irrKlang 1.2.0 released | |
| Posted by: Nikolaus Gebhardt at 10:58:49 PM | |
| irrKlang, a high level audio library for game developers has just been released in version 1.2.0, adding FLAC file support and performance improvments. irrKlang is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X and able to play back various file formats such as WAV, MP3, OGG, MOD etc, both in 2D and 3D. irrKlang is free for non-commercial use and can be used by C++ developers as well as with .NET languages like C#, VisualBasic.NET and similar. Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Call for Papers: European Summit for Educators, Game Industry Executives | |
| Posted by: Game Path at 2:01:48 PM | |
| Named “the happiest place on Earth” by Oprah, Denmark is about to get a tad geekier :) The first Game Education Summit Europe will take place at the Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment (DADIU) on June 22-23, 2010 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Call for Papers: http://www.geseurope.com/ges-europe-2010-call-papers Read More.. | 0 Comments | |
| Wednesday, November 18, 2009 | |
| The Daily GameDev.net | |
| Posted by: Oli Wilkinson at 2:29:37 PM | |
| Modern Wealth: Modern Warfare 2 has been good for Activision, Grossing over $550million in 5 days. It's also been good for Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who's been exercising his stock options to rake in $20million on launch day and a further $17million recently. Go on, treat yourself to that new speedboat. Modern Morefare: Hardly suprising, but after Modern Warfare 2's success, Activision are reported to have charged a third studio, working alongside Infinity Ward and Treyarch to work on another Call of Duty game. There's also rumors of a Call of Duty MMO. Hmm, ok. Australia Game Dev Layoffs: Australia's Game Development industry has had a rough time as of late and I'm saddened to hear that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed developer Krome Studios has announced an undisclosed number of layoffs. Europe PS3 Movie Rental: From tomorrow (Thursday) PS3 owners in Europe can access PSN's Video Store, allowing them to rent movies from e1.99 and buy from e7.99 per title. The service, which works in a similar way to XBox LIVE's video service, allows you to watch the video for 48 hours after you press play. A nice feature lets you transfer your films to your PSP for watching on the move. The services launches with around 2000 titles available UK Temp Worker Ruling: Game studios in the UK may no longer enjoy the benefits of hiring temporary workers as the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 bill aims to grant similar rights as permanent staff to temp workers. Tiga are warning that this move could adversely affect game developers as it would reduce flexibility and ultimately competitiveness of UK studios overseas. Un-Fun-Q3-Com: Norweigian MMO developers FunCom have announced a $9.59million loss for Q3 of 2009, blaming market conditions and releases from competitors such as Aion and Champions Online stealing people away from Age Of Conan. The company are looking to the future with the Q2 2010 release of their next MMO, The Secret World. Square Enix announce Supreme Commander 2: Square Enix have announced Supreme Commander 2 for a spring release on the XBox 360 and PC. The game is being developed by Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games. I'm looking forward to waging large scale war with giant robots and nuclear weapons again. iPhone Piracy: Seems to be a regular feature in my posts, but Gamasutra have posted a feature detailing the findings of Pinch Media's Greg Yardley. In his report, he details that over 60% of iPhone applications have been pirated and fears that the figures could be even higher. I find it disturbing that even the low-cost games of the app store are subject to such systemic theft by unscrupulous pirates. Zynga VC Funding: Social Networking games studio Zynga have seen a $15million cash injection from an unnamed venture capital source. The company has courted controvesy over the past few weeks over its in-game advertising models and allegations of hidden scams and confusing offers. Read More.. | 14 Comments | |
